NASA History

The Life and Legacy of John Glenn: A Discussion with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and author Jeff Shesol

The History and Politics of Space Junk: Space Policy and History Forum

NASA History Human Spaceflight Panel

Apollo16_IGFEED3_1x1.mp4

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Huygens Titan Touchdown

Frau im Mond (woman in the moon) rocket launch clip

Are you a student interested in aerospace history? Are you looking for a fall internship? Then get to work! The deadline for NASA History's internship is tomorrow! Read more about the application process here: https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-history-division-student-internships

#OTD (on this day) in 1967, the Venera 4 probe was launched into space from the U.S.S.R. This probe provided an atmospheric analysis of Venus and made history by becoming the first to transmit data from another planet's atmosphere.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Chandra) was born in India when it was a British Colony. He became one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century. He was one of the first scientists to couple the study of physics with the study of astronomy. Chandra won the Nobel Prize in physics (shared with William Fowler) for work on understanding the structure and evolution of stars. He spent much of his professional life (from 1937 until his death in 1995) as a professor at the University of Chicago. One of NASA's four "Great Observatories", the Chandra X-ray Observatory, was named in his honor, and launched in 1999. For more information check out https://go.nasa.gov/3dQZG15 and https://go.nasa.gov/3fHSCVX

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#HappyBirthday to astronaut Drew Morgan! 🎉 🎉 A graduate of US Military Academy at West Point, NY, Drew was trained as an emergency physician in the U.S. Army. He is currently serving aboard the International Space Station as a flight engineer. Looks like he is having a good time being "pushed around" in space!

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At 7:51 am (ET) #OTD 1968, #Apollo8 launched, sending the first humans into a lunar orbit and proving that a Moon landing was within reach for the United States. The close-up views of the Moon and the distant views of the Earth shared by Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders proved to be profound.

Apollo 12 Moon Landing

Today, we mark the #Apollo50th anniversary of Apollo 12’s remarkable pinpoint Moon landing. At 1:55am (ET) on November 19th, 1969, #Apollo12 astronauts Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed the Lunar Module, "Intrepid", in the Ocean of Storms on the lunar surface. While the preliminary landing site was projected to be 1000 feet (~0.3 km) from #NASA's 1967 Surveyor III lander, Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed just over 500 feet (~0.15 km) away. Pinpoint landing: Check. Next up: Become the third and fourth humans on the Moon.

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Today, we remember Dr. Fred Whipple who was born on this day in 1906. Hailing from Red Oak, Iowa, Whipple was an innovator consistently working ahead of his time. He developed the “dirty snowball” model of comets, concluding that there was ice in a comet's nucleus which vaporized into gas and created the distinctive tail of comets. Whipple also developed an idea of how to protect spacecraft from micrometeoroids and orbital debris. He came up with the idea for this Whipple Bumper, or Whipple Shield, in 1946, over ten years before the launch of Earth's first artificial satellite. When Sputnik did reach orbit in 1957, it caught much of the world off guard, but not Whipple. He had already organized the first group of scientists to calculate the trajectories of then-hypothetical space objects, so he and his team were one of the few groups to make useful observations. Whipple continued working into his 90s, becoming the oldest researcher to have an active role on a NASA space science mission at the time. He passed away in 2004. Many of his theories and inventions are still in use today, and his work has been instrumental in shaping our understanding of space technology. go.nasa.gov/2fdOoXh

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Water is a key factor in supporting life as we know it and NASA has found water in some of the most amazing places in our Solar System - including Saturn’s tiny ice moon Enceladus (just 505 km in diameter). While NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Cassini spacecraft zipped around Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017, some of its most incredible discoveries were about the small, icy world. Enceladus has a subterranean global ocean of liquid salt water! Even more unbelievable, Cassini was able to examine some of that water, in part because of geyser-like jets that spray water vapor into space through fissures in the fractured surface. #OTD in 2015, Cassini took the mission's “deepest dive” through the plumes approaching just 49 km above the surface, transmitting data about the contents of the water. Find out more about Enceladus and the Cassini-Huygens mission: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7510 https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/deepest-ever-dive-through-enceladus-plume-completed https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/science/enceladus/

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Today we honor a mission that holds multiple historic firsts for #WomeninSTEM! STS-41G, the 13th Shuttle flight, was the first time in history that two women flew into space at the same time, as its crew included NASA Astronauts Sally K. Ride and Kathryn D. Sullivan. The mission was not Sally Ride’s first rodeo, because she was the first American woman to fly in space (on STD-7 in 1983). But it gets even better! On the 7th day of the flight, October 11th, 1984, Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to spacewalk! Kathy’s historic EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), with crewmate Astronaut David C. Leestma, lasted 3 hours and 29 minutes. A wonderful perk of living in the era of video is that we can relive these moments in history. So please enjoy watching Kathy become the first American woman to step out of the “comfort” of the Shuttle into the vacuum of space. Note that Kathy is the spacewalker without red stripes on her spacesuit. This was truly #OneGiantLeap!

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It's our birthday! On this day, 61 years ago, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration opened for business. On October 1, 1958, NASA inherited five facilities from the NACA: Lewis Research Center in Ohio, Langley Research Center and the Wallops Station rocket test range in Virginia, and Ames Research Center and the High Speed Flight Station in California. That same day NASA assumed responsibility for space projects and appropriations from other government space organizations. As a result NASA started with a staff of 8,240 people (8,000 from the NACA) and a budget of approximately $340 million. T. Keith Glennan, the president of the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio, had already been sworn in as NASA's first administrator. He addressed the new NASA employees (formerly of NACA) in this message (delivered on film back in those days).

Administrator Webb Archival Materials

“I have been telling him for 13 months that I was a candidate for nothing except retirement on my birthday” - NASA Administrator Jim Webb, commenting on his discussion with President Johnson (Audio below) Are you out there dreaming of retirement? Well, this week in 1968, after 7 years of service, NASA administrator James Webb announced that he would be retiring on October 7, 1968, the day of his 62nd birthday. That is why we have chosen to feature his collection as the first in our new series of posts about the items in our NASA Headquarters Historical Reference Collection. Here at the archives we have collections for each one of the NASA Administrators. These collections contain documents, photographs, correspondence, and audio from their time here. Our James Webb Collection fills up 14 and a half boxes that occupy 4 feet, 10 inches of shelf space. The archival material spans from 1939 to 2003, much longer than his time as Administrator (1961-1968) A few interesting tidbits discovered in the collection: -James Webb’s secretary, Nina Scrivener continued to work for him, even after he left NASA. We have correspondence from Ms. Scrivener on Webb’s behalf all the way up to 1990. -James Webb received numerous notes of congratulations for the success of Apollo 8 sent from all over the world. These notes came after he had retired from NASA. - A note from the Administrator who followed him, Thomas Paine, to James Webb written on a copy of Webb’s Oath of Office which says, “ To Jim Webb, who has signed these cards so many hundreds of times. -Tom Paine” For more, see the James E. Webb Administrator Files Finding Aid:https://history.nasa.gov/PDFs/Finding%20aids/Administrators_Deputy%20Administrators/webb_james_administrator_files_finding_aid.pdf

Fifty five years ago #now (9:25 a.m. EDT), Ranger 7 made a crash landing during the first fully successful U.S. mission in our exploration of the Moon. Although crashing into the lunar surface doesn't seem like it should be called a success, it was done by design. Crashing allowed the probe to get close to the surface and transmit detailed photos back to Earth before its preordained demise. In only 17 minutes, from the time its cameras were turned on to impact, Ranger 7 transmitted over 4,000 images from six different cameras. These photos helped us prepare for human missions to the Moon and improved our understanding of the lunar surface. In honor of the probe's achievement, the area it crashed into was named Mare Cognitum, Latin for “The Sea that has Become Known.” Learn more about the Ranger project: https://go.nasa.gov/2SRtu43

Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong’s Reflections on NASA's Mission to Land on the Moon

Neil A. Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 mission to land on the Moon, reflects on the successful mission and his experience in lunar exploration. For more information on the Apollo Program, visit https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/

Apollo 11: One Small Step on the Moon for All Mankind

Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent more than two hours outside their spacecraft on the Moon. They studied the surface. They collected rocks. After almost a day, they blasted off. They docked with Michael Collins in orbit around the Moon. For more information on their voyage to the Moon and one small step on the lunar surface for all of mankind, visit https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/

"Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." This quote from Neil Armstrong, said 50 years ago #now, is probably his second most famous of the mission. (We bet you can guess the other one...) Both statements were spontaneous, and both prompted deep sighs of relief from Mission Control and millions of spectators around the world. But unlike Armstrong's #OneGiantLeap quote, his partner on the Moon was taken by surprise by the status report. Why was Buzz Aldrin surprised? Well, time was of the essence. If anything had gone wrong during landing, Armstrong and Aldrin had only two minutes to discover the problem and decide whether they would leave the Moon. Any longer, and they would have to wait two hours for the Command Module to orbit back around. Every second counted, but it was at this moment Armstrong chose to announce the poetic name of their base. Both Aldrin and CapCom Charlie Duke knew that the base would be called "Tranquility," but did not know when it would be announced. As a result, Duke became tongue-tied at the simple, but beautiful words that have lived on for the past fifty years. #Apollo50th (GIF courtesy of David Woods and the Apollo Flight Journal)

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Thanks to David Woods and the Apollo Flight Journal for the fantastic video "Apollo 11: The Complete Descent." This clip explains the mechanics of how we landed on the Moon. Watch the full video on YouTube to see real footage of the landing, corrected for altitude and pitch angle and complete with audio and subtitles from Mission Control. T-2 hours to touchdown. #Apollo50th